The procession entered the courtyard, then the railway station, and the gates and doors were reclosed.

The two men in the barouches made themselves known to the Special Commissary of the station, to whom the aide-de-camp Fleury spoke privately.  This mysterious convoy excited the curiosity of the railway officials; they questioned the policemen, but these knew nothing.  All that they could tell was that these police-vans contained eight places, that in each van there were four prisoners, each occupying a cell, and that the four other cells were filled by four sergents de ville placed between the prisoners so as to prevent any communication between the cells.

After various consultations between the aide-de-camp of the Elysee and the men of the Prefect Maupas, the two police-vans were placed on railway trucks, each having behind it the open barouche like a wheeled sentry-box, where a police agent acted as sentinel.  The engine was ready, the trucks were attached to the tender, and the train started.  It was still pitch dark.

For a long time the train sped on in the most profound silence.  Meanwhile it was freezing, in the second of the two police-vans, the sergents de ville, cramped and chilled, opened their cells, and in order to warm and stretch themselves walked up and down the narrow gangway which runs from end to end of the police-vans.  Day had broken, the four sergents de ville inhaled the outside air and gazed at the passing country through a species of port-hole which borders each side of the ceiling of the passage.  Suddenly a loud voice issued from one of the cells which had remained closed, and cried out, “Hey! there! it is very cold, cannot I relight my cigar here?”

Another voice immediately issued from a second cell, and said, “What! it is you?  Good-morning, Lamoriciere!”

“Good-morning, Cavaignac!” replied the first voice.

General Cavaignac and General Lamoriciere had just recognized each other.

A third voice was raised from a third cell.  “Ah! you are there, gentlemen.  Good-morning and a pleasant journey.”

He who spoke then was General Changarnier.

“Generals?” cried out a fourth voice.  “I am one of you!”

The three generals recognized M. Baze.  A burst of laughter came from the four cells simultaneously.

This police-van in truth contained, and was carrying away from Paris, the Questor Baze, and the Generals Lamoriciere, Cavaignac, and Changarnier.  In the other vehicle, which was placed foremost on the trucks, there were Colonel Charras, Generals Bedeau and Le Flo, and Count Roger (du Nord).

At midnight these eight Representative prisoners were sleeping in their cells at Mazas, when they heard a sudden knocking at their doors, and a voice cried out to them, “Dress, they are coming to fetch you.”  “Is it to shoot us?” cried Charras from the other side of the door.  They did not answer him.  It is worth remarking that this idea came simultaneously to all.  And in truth, if we can believe what has since transpired through the quarrels of accomplices, it appears that in the event of a sudden attack being made by us upon Mazas to deliver them, a fusillade had been resolved upon, and that St. Arnaud had in his pocket the written order, signed “Louis Bonaparte.”